[JOHN O'MAHONY sets out (Socialist Organiser no. 52)…]
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-09-24Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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JOHN O'MAHONY sets out (Socialist Organiser no. 52) to assess the 'debate on the left' concerning rate and rent increases and the cuts. But the concluding part of this article is both confused and confusing.
During the course of the article he appears to suggest that the correct position is one of complete opposition to all rate and rent increases, and to all the cuts. Certainly, this is the only position which anyone who starts off from the interests of the working class could possibly hold.
But at the end of the article, comrade O'Mahony moves away from this position. He suggests unity with London Labour Briefing on, among other things, the policy that:
'Labour Local Government Committees must coordinate a mass refusal by Labour councils to either increase rates rents unreasonably or slash services"
Perhaps this actually means opposition to every single reduction of services, rather than Just to their being 'slashed' But more importantly than what may just be clumsy formulation, the position which O'Mahony accepts as a basis for unity is entirely different to one of total opposition to any rate or rent increase.
increase With living standards able' rent or rate increase for the working class is no increase at all. That is the reality.
If O'Mahony disagrees with it, he should say so. If he agras with it, then again, why did he not so?
JIM FARNHAM EDITORS' NOTE: Socialist Organiser is against rent and rate rises. The formula quoted at the end of John O'Mahony's article is from Chris Mullin.
Mullin must be referring to the view sometimes held in the labour movement that Labour councils should be willing to raise rates, for example, by an amount proportion as wage rises. He certainly isn't referring to 'balancing the books', because his whole article ia a polemic against that idea!
We didn't argue with Mullin's formula because both the political gist of it [the working class should refuse to pay for the bosses' crisis] and the practical conclusion [confrontation with the Tories] are the same as ours.
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being attacked and lowered each day, the only 'reason-